By Elliot Jay Stocks
224 pages, hardcover, $40
Published by Quarto Publishing Group
quarto.com

An accessible but serious reference book, Universal Principles of Typography: 100 Key Concepts for Choosing and Using Type by Elliot Jay Stocks can be appreciated by both students and professionals alike. Stocks, a serial entrepreneur, former editor-in-chief of Google Fonts Knowledge and creative director of Adobe Fonts, writes with humor while doling out practical advice.

Each spread, which Stocks refers to as a “chapter,” explores a principle through explanatory text, visual examples and diagrams without feeling prescriptive. The reader will find helpful tips for all modern typographic problems, and Stocks makes sure each chapter has multiple answers. In one chapter titled “Break the rules with optical trickery,” Stocks provides five ways to adjust type for a better reading experience and encourages the reader to play around even if it would be considered a no-no by traditional typography standards. In an entire section dedicated to OpenType, web typography and variable fonts, Stocks gives applicable CSS settings and explains their importance for typographic choices on the web. It’s important to note, though, that this isn’t a step-by-step manual for CSS; he is providing blueprints for a system you’d have to build and test out yourself.

Beyond the traditional advice about type, Stocks addresses larger contemporary issues within the typographic world, such as the lack of support for non-Latin languages and the need for licensing. He encourages designers to have more holistic thinking about the context in which type is consumed and asks them to consider who they design for more broadly. —Haniya Rae ca